Tag: Christmas

The Smile of God: Homily for Mary, Mother of God 2026

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Mary, Mother of God                                                                                January 1, 2026Fr. Alexander Albert                                                           St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/EPagZfs_8uo When I was serving as a deacon at Cathedral, Msgr. Mouton was living there in retirement. Very much his own man, Monsignor Mouton was quite disciplined. His expectations of others and himself were quite high. I’ve also heard stories that, when he taught seniors at Vermilion Catholic, he would tell his students outright, “you are not going to make an ‘A’ in my class.” I don’t know if that proved to be true or not, but I get the impression that...Read More

Where is God? Homily for Christmas 2025

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Christmas                                                                                         December 25, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                            St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/KaOd3emzO4s “Where is God?” Agnes Bojaxhiu once asked a variation of that question to a bishop during adoration. Agnes was born in 1910 to a devoutly Catholic family. Besides their daily prayers and weekly Mass attendance, the family also expressed their faith in and love of the invisible God with a weekly visit to the poor to bring food and clothes and company. Like any Catholic family and even many secular ones, Christmas was a time of joy and celebration and family and...Read More

What’s In A Name: Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent 2025

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4th Sunday of Advent, A                                                                  December 21, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                            St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/KGRQCZBwWtE Myth. Legend. Liar. Lunatic. The cause of wars. The symbol of oppression, hatred, and discrimination. The angry judge. The source of guilt and repression. The role model. The teacher. The nice guy. The Lord. The Savior… When you call upon Jesus, when you think or speak of him, how do you name him? Because everyone of those titles, every one of those “names” has been applied to Jesus of Nazareth. But this is not a sociological question. It is a personal one. What do...Read More

The Hour of His Coming: Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent 2025

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1st Sunday of Advent, A                                                                 November 30, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                           St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/kKP5CynznWw One Sunday when I was a boy, we were running late for reasons I don’t remember. My dad insisted on going to Mass every Sunday; that’s one of the only times I remember us not making it. Pulling up to the Church and seeing Mass about to end, my father decided we’d pray in the adoration chapel. He told us to spend some time in prayer to make up for missing Mass. So we did. I went in, knelt down, and told God sorry....Read More

Mother of Memory: Homily for Mary, Mother of God 2025

Posted on by Father Albert
Mary, Mother of God                                                                                     January 1, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/LXWgcCJzGB4 What do you keep? What in your life and experiences and memories do you store up, hold onto, safeguard? That word, “keep,” has a lot more connotation than just maintaining possession of something. It’s also translated as “treasuring” something. So, like keeping a trophy or keeping something in a safe-deposit box or “keeping” an eye on your small child. There’s value in the thing being kept. There are lots of memories that we kind of “keep” whether we want to...Read More

The Father’s House: Homily for the Holy Family 2024

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Feast of the Holy Family, C                                                               December 28, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/-u_BLnMEdEs When I say “holy family,” what do you picture? Jesus, Mary, & Joseph are the Holy Family, but what if I ask you to picture a more generic idea of a holy family? Perfectly behaved kids sitting quietly in church? An immaculate home? A strict father surrounded by his solemn-faced wife and kids praying the rosary with unbroken concentration? When I picture a holy family, I see a noisy family meal, the chaotic joy of Christmas morning, a family...Read More

Where is the Peace? Homily for Christmas 2024

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Christmas                                                                                            December 25, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/s0BLJbW0oZA Where is the peace? Isn’t there supposed to be peace? Christmas songs proclaim “Peace on earth and mercy mild,” the gloria at Mass comes from the Christmas angels singing “Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace to people of good will.” Scripture calls Jesus the “Prince of Peace.” Yet, the Holy Land where Jesus was born is a perpetual warzone. Earth as a whole never goes more than a few decades at a time without some major war happening. The...Read More

Blessed Are You Who Believed: Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent

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4th Sunday of Advent, C                                                                                 December 22, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/bHDa_DXSTXI “Blessed are you among women.” times 53 in each rosary times the tens of millions of people who pray at least one rosary every day. That means those words are said to Mary over half a billion times every day… and I’m lowballing that number. Mary is blessed indeed! Why, though? Why should Mary be so blessed? And what can we do to be blessed as well? For one thing, it is God’s will. God chose her from before...Read More

Hope Fleshed Out: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2024

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2nd Sunday of Advent, C                                                                                December 8, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/XVSMWcTmRuA “I’m spiritual but not religious.” “I’m an open Christian.” “I am a spiritual person.” These kinds of sayings can be pretty appealing. For a little while, when I was younger, it was popular to be agnostic or atheist, to act like only dumb people believed in God or anything spiritual. Nowadays, however, most people are open to some kind of higher power or spiritual truth. The reality is that human beings need the spiritual. As soon as people start to...Read More

Surviving the End of the World: Homily for the 33rd Sunday OT 2024

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33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                   November 17, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/eg_n8cldRbY Repent! The end is near! No, really it’s true. I mean, it’s been true since Jesus ascended into heaven, but you really do need to repent nonetheless. Jesus could come back at any moment. Our own deaths could happen at any moment. So, we should be ready now. And if we are not, then we need to start getting ready now. We are two weeks away from Advent, which is the beginning of our liturgical year. So, on the Church’s...Read More